The violins, paid for with grants and individual contributions, will add to the collection of musical instruments being used by the fourth-grade students who participate in the second-year program.

Harmony Stockton - created through a partnership among the symphony, University of the Pacific, Stockton Unified and the United Way - is in the early stages of trying to replicate Venezuela's 36-year-old El Sistema music instruction program. Like Harmony Stockton, El Sistema started small.

But through the years, it has swept through the South American nation to serve hundreds of thousands of needy children, helping to lift them from poverty and sparking major social changes in Venezuela's ghettos.

The Harmony Stockton students spend 10 hours a week learning not only to play the violin but also singing; learning music theory, history and note reading; and playing recorders.

The hope for the program's creators is that over time, Harmony Stockton will help transform the Marshall community and that the program ultimately will expand to other schools and help bring social change to other underserved neighborhoods in the city.